"Ulla felt hate bloom in her heart."

[neverwaitslong]

Who: Ulla & open
When: Early August
Where: around the Clipper
Warnings: Anger, possible ineffectual violence
What: Furious mermaid is not settling in well

Being captured all over again was bad enough.

But then there's this, her power stripped from her, stuffed into a body that used to be hers but doesn't feel like home anymore. A body even more ill-suited for being trapped in the confines of a ship than her eel tail was. At least that let her slither. Slow and unwieldy, but not impossible. Now, she'd flop on the deck like a caught fish.

The beautiful silver scales on the fish tail she grew up with are a reminder of all that she lost, and she hates it.

"Warren!" she yells. Because if he's here, it would at least be some consolation. He has to be here.

--

Eventually, Ulla figures out that the ridiculous ostentatious open seashell is meant for her, as a form of transportation. It feels like a mockery of a throne, an absurdity. She misses the fishbowl Warren got her. She misses her old cabin, with the comforting weight of water pressed around her. She misses Warren. And she's furious all the time.

All of the songs she sings are angry, impotent things that would tear the ship apart if she could put any real power behind them. She composes spells of destruction, and wishes they were more than an intellectual exercise.

[For Nanny Ogg]

Ulla glares daggers at her new warden. Or assistant, or whatever they're calling themselves here. "I've already had a warden for two years. You aren't him."

Comments

[neverwaitslong]

"What are you doing?" Ulla asks as her song draws to a close. She noticed him recording. If she had the anger left to spare, she might be more possessive of her music, but she's spending it all on being here. On losing Warren.

And he's only a child.

[packhound]

"I'm trying to write down the notes you're singing. My teacher says it's good practice." Easily and without seeing any reason to hesitate. If she didn't want someone writing it down, then she would've gone some where private. That's the rules back home, and he's never seen a reason to update them.

[neverwaitslong]

There isn't anywhere private here, but she still doesn't have much anger to spare. "Can I see?"

She's curious if he uses the notation she's familiar with. And whether he got the notes down correctly, if he does.

[packhound]

"Sure!"

He holds out the paper, the notes recorded not in musical notation she's likely to have seen but in carefully written numbers.

[neverwaitslong]

"How do you write music like that?" Ulla wonders. "It's much more sensible to write it so you can easily see what the notes should do."